The local UIs on most marking machines, such as multifunction devices and electrophotographic and xerographic printers and copiers, are tradeoffs between functionality and size/cost. One outcome of this tradeoff is that the local UI design makes it easy for the user to enter numeric data, but more difficult to enter text data. Hard buttons are typically used for entering numeric data only, with alternate entry interfaces being used for text data. Typically, devices display a keyboard on a touch screen that allows users to select each letter to be entered. However, the touch area for each letter is small, making it easy to select the wrong letter. Thus, existing methods for entering text can be cumbersome to use.
This situation was not a problem when users did not need to enter much text information. However, as new functionality has been added to marking machines, the need for users to enter text data has increased. For example, the “scan to email” feature allows users to enter one or more email addresses as the destination for a scanning job. Using a touch screen as described above to enter an email address (such as “donald.wegeng@usa.xerox.com”) is cumbersome. Since it is not practical to replace the local UI hardware on these products with something that is more text-friendly, an alternative means for entering text data would be useful.
The use of electronic devices, such as portable computers, hand-held Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), cellular/wireless telephones, and PDA/phone hybrids, has become commonplace in many office environments. Laptop computers allow data entry in a number of ways, including keyboard, speech-to-text, and stylus-based entry. PDAs and hybrids usually provide a stylus-based mechanism for entering data, though small keyboards are also employed on some models. As an example, Palm OS based devices support text data input using a stylus-based pen stroke interface. Users of these devices quickly become proficient at entering text. Thus, electronic devices provide many ways to enter data that are much easier to use than those provided in typical marking machine UIs. Additionally, many electronic devices can store databases of contact information in the form of address books and the like. It would be advantageous for a user to select a contact entry and have the device automatically send contact information to the marking machine.
Further, most electronic device include at least one communications port that can be used to transfer data to a marking machine connected to a compatible communications port. Such communications ports can advantageously be wireless, such as Infrared Data Association (IrDA) compatible interfaces or BlueTooth interfaces, which can provide a wireless method for transferring data between the electronic device and the marking machine.
Embodiments provide for the attachment of an electronic device, such as, for example, a laptop computers, cellular/wireless telephone, and especially a hand-held Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or PDA/telephone hybrid, as alternative interfaces for entering data, such as text data, into the local user interface of a device, such as a marking machine. Embodiments employ communications ports, such as infrared ports and other wireless communications ports, of electronic devices for transmitting data from the electronic device to the marking machine. Advantageously, the attached electronic device acts as an extension of the interface of the marking machine and can be added to existing machines, especially when the communications port is compatible with a communications port that already exists on the marking machine, such as a serial or parallel port. Data, such as text, can be entered into the electronic device using its normal method, such as with a stylus. Software on the electronic device accepts the data and transmits it to the marking machine via the communications port of the electronic device. A compatible communications port connected to the marking machine receives the data, and software on the marking machine inserts the data into an active entry field on the local UI.
The user uses the marking machine UI to select appropriate job options and brings up a data entry field. At this point, the UI presents an element, such as a graphically-rendered button, that instructs the marking machine to read the data from the connected communications port when activated. When this selection is made, the marking device monitors data coming in via the communications port and the user starts an application on the electronic device. Once the application is going, the user can select appropriate data from their address book or enter the appropriate data using the text entry mechanism on the electronic device. The application also provides a way for the user to indicate data entry completion, at which point the application transmits the data via the electronic device's communications port. The data is read by the marking machine and inserted into the recipient field on the local UI.
In embodiments, the application simply reads and transmits the data; it is not aware of the context in which the data was being used. This allows the application to be generic in nature, since all knowledge about the specific application is contained in the software running on the marking machine 10.